Vindicated
by CharmingNotDarling
Summary: There are ghosts of conversations past hanging on his last few words but he does not take the time to elaborate on their existence. . .
1. Common Ground

**Common Ground**

Disclaimer: Disclaimed

Summary: There are three sides to every story; yours, mine and the truth

Common Ground

Part one of three

_It's funny how a little heart-to heart can change your whole perspective_

The night air is ripe with spring and thick with the coming rain. Dusk has already come and gone and the sky is both dark and bright with the silvery purple glow of early evening twilight. As the rain scented wind gently sweeps in it lifts petals off the cherry blossoms and scatters them like snow. As I walk along the path, I watch the fireflies, in groups of threes and fours gather and sway to the beat of their own subtle slow motion dance. The casualness of their movements makes me long for a time and place when life was that simple. And I will admit, only to myself of course, that the lovely glow of the tiny bugs stays with me longer than I'd expected because no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to find my own simple moment.

Off to the East, glowing strong and bright behind the tree line the moon is beginning its climb, eyes wide open. It should be all but full tonight, just missing the smallest sliver off to one side. To the West there's an angry and demanding roll of still far off thunder. Yet in the sky over head there isn't a cloud to be seen, just the promise of stars. I know it's silly to hope, but I find myself wishing anyway that the rain would hold off a while longer. Though I would have to believe that something as small as a warm spring rain could never be enough to keep this reunion from taking place.

The farther down the path I walk the more defined my heartbeat becomes. I can feel the heavy weight of it deep in my chest, and the pounding so loud in my ears my feet fall deafly along the gravel path. And now as the rich sent of coffee reaches me and our bench, still empty, is within my view my heart takes off like a frantic caged hummingbird desperate for escape.

I'm both relieved and a little disappointed that I'm the first to arrive. Relieved I now have a few solitary moments here on what I guess we've come to think of as our common ground, a place that belongs to neither of us but both of us at the same time. I realize now a few extra moments to bring my heart beat back from its flight and to clear the cobwebs that look a lot like self doubt from my mind might actually be a good thing. Yet no matter how irrational it feels I'm ever so slightly disappointed I was the only one overeager enough to be early.

As I casually stroll passed the coffee cart I make eye contact with the girl behind its counter. She's the same girl that's been there for as long as I can remember, and I guess now that I think about it she's hardly a girl anymore. Maybe a few years ago when we first started coming here steadily before we earned our titles as regulars, maybe then she would have been considered a girl. A teenager, fresh out of high school, maybe her first year at a near by university but now she's anything but. And then as I look her over a second time it dawns on me; she doesn't recognize me. Sure she gives me a standard customer service smile but as quickly as it came to be it's gone and she's turned her attention back to the tasks before her. Sure she serves coffee all day long to both the steady flow of vacationers and visitors and her ever present regulars, but only a short time ago I'd consider myself, both of us, her regulars. And now I'm just a face in the crowd. I wonder who else's memory I've managed to fade from over the last twelve months.

I shake the negative notions from my mind, force a smile to my face and roll my shoulders a few times to help loosen up. I really need to calm down I mean this is a reunion. It's supposed to be happy and candid, not awkward and filled with judgment. I snap back to reality to realize that I've been pacing the length of the bench and back. This is not how I want to be seen for the first time in a year. I want to be myself, calm, cool, and collected. So I sit reluctantly and cradle my head in my hands, try to breath deep and even and I can't help but laugh at myself.

How am I supposed to be myself when I don't even know who that is when I'm alone?

When we're Booth and Brennan I know exactly who I am. I make up exactly half of one of the most unique and valuable teams the FBI has ever had. Well I did, and hopefully after tonight I will once again. It was our understanding when we each went our separate ways last year that after today all would be back to what it was. I will admit that in the beginning I didn't want to leave but, once I was gone, everyone and everything left behind me, I was glad I had decided to go.

I never really understood how people confided in strangers and yet somehow I ended up spilling my guts to the first person willing to listen to me. A heat to heart is what Angela would have called it.

It's funny how a heart-to-heart, can change your whole perspective.

I know now it was what I needed to get all my thoughts and emotions in order. To sort everything out and see what it really was I was running from and what I was merely leaving behind. It didn't take too long for everything to fall into place, for all the advice everyone had given me to really sink in. After all this time and all the random words of wisdom, opinions of the people I keep as my closest confidants, what I really needed was an hour with someone who knew nothing of what was weighing so heavily in my heart. And I must admit once the words had left my mouth it was as if they were indeed the cause of all the pressure in my chest. As soon as the breath left my lungs, those declarations clinging tightly to the rush of it I was fine. Yet now with every breath I take I feel the anvil settling in once more, the longer I wait the heavier it becomes.

Prayers and wishes and nonsense aside I now find I'm all but begging for this moment to commence. I need my feet back on solid ground, no matter how thin or fragile it may be, as long as I'm no longer standing on my own, no longer waiting I know I'll be fine. I'll be whole.

The sky is finally dark, the sun giving into its nightly surrender as the moon and her ghostly glow take over, the gentle parade of the brightest stars fallow in her wake as they fight the D.C. florescence for a chance at center stage. I watch their fight for purchase, my head thrown back to rest while I wait, and as promised the Western sky is brewing with a fight of its own as the thunderous clouds pick up their pace and slowly steal their thunder. Literally.


	2. Reflections and Dreams

**Vindicated**

**Disclaimer: Coffee preferences aside, I own nothing**

**Chapter two of three **

**Reflections and Dreams**

_Like love and faith, the truth is never vain… _

I'm late. And it's killing me. I take the path with quickening strides great full my memory holds this course true because the sun and all its light have officially left the city and even though the moon is taking a stand in the night it's losing quickly to the powers that be and their cloak of rolling darkness. The wind picks up again and this time it's all business. I watch the leaves in the trees, their pale veined underbellies thrown up in the breeze. I've been told it's a sure sign of rain.

I've played the scene I'm about to encounter over in my mind so many times, it's funny I never once wondered after the weather.

So now that the sky above is preparing for what I think will be a quick yet violent battle, I add it into the equation and it does not set the story astray in the least. And I will admit, only to myself of course, that I may have let my fantasies have the better of me. I mean a year is a very long time to wonder and hope and daydream. It's pretty much the most of what kept my head above water, or sand rather, these last few months.

The closer this day came to the forefront of my life the more I hoped things would go my way. There would be no greater moment in my future than to see my own emotions reflected back at me in the depths of those blue eyes.

'A reevaluation' and 'new understanding' of all my past declarations are the terms that would be used. No tear drenched reflection on the past and its mistakes. It might be a fantasy but she is who she is.

Incomplete without her science and the logic it follows, like water and its mindless path down hill, it just knows no other way.

I'm pretty sure I've come to terms with the fact that there will be no such utterance in the moments that follow. And I can all but guaranty there will be no commencement tonight, no sudden drop into the unknown that has filled all of the spaces my heart can spare. But it's the heart of a lion, or so I've been told, and it's too strong and filled with love and a heavy dose of pride, to give up hope now.

If patience truly is a virtue, I'm as virtuous as they come.

The air is so thick, so wet and heavy I can't be sure if it has in fact begun to rain. As I round a corner and it fills my vision I turn to the Reflecting Pool for conformation. There are a few scattered ripples along its glassy surface giving the echoing tree tops a soft and dreamy feel but it's only the wind whipped cotton candy petals that disturb the picturesque pond.

Perhaps Lady Luck does in fact exist.

And then the lighting strikes making contact somewhere in the not to distant distance and the thunder roars immediately after.

My quickening stride becomes a steady jog.

If there was ever a foreshadowing to heel to, along the horizon of my life, I would think this would be it. Rolling thunder and air so thick you could drown, set directly in the path of a reunion that's sure to cause more heartache than joy.

I don't know what this last year was supposed to prove or how it came to be. I almost feel as if I went to bed one night with no intentions of ever leaving and I woke the next morning with a full fledged understanding and desire to leave as quickly as possible. I know I left because she was determined to go, to prove she is who she was before we were ever us. But I also know I did it for myself, for my country and my peace of mind. For the faith of my son and the lives I know my skills did save.

I did not leave to see if I returned to more than what I left.

And I'd be damned if I was to stay, to work on my own with only her memory and the haunting of her absence. I'd be a man with no mission, a tide always turning and striving for purpose and like every wave that crashes upon every shore, I'd surface with nothing but the slowly sifting sand between my desperate fingers.

Sure I could blame the boy wonder for all of this. Because when you think about it, the duckling just couldn't keep his mouth shut. And now the truth has an inky permanence to it, printed a thousand times over with no disclaimers of changed names or protection for us, the innocent. I always kind of felt like Sweets wanted us together. Not just for the reasons and evaluations listed like evidence or symptoms in that damn book, but more like a forgotten middle child who's become desperate for his parent's affection. A constant, broadening need to have his opinion viewed and respected.

The repetition of a single action with the expectation of a different outcome; It's nice to be the one to throw those words in someone else's face, however childish that might sound.

Far be it from me to label the boy mentally unsound, but his perpetual insistence when it comes to the matters of my heart have given me moments of questioning his ability to compartmentalize.

But then again what does that make me?

I've come upon our coffee cart, the face beside its counter barely registers, but the soft feminine voice stops me.

"Hazelnut roast, cream no sugar."

Our eyes meet again and I see the woman who was hiding inside the teenager I remember.

"Good memory." I state as my eyes go wide with surprise, after all it's been a while.

"Cream, two sugars, second one of the days is always a decaf."

She throws her thumb over her shoulder to indicate a bench some fifty feet behind her, set in a halo of iridescent, golden light that only highlights the ribbon like mist thickening the air.

And there in the middle of that misty glow sits the reason for my existence.

"I didn't recognize her without you." She tells me by way of an explanation.

My only reply is a burst of sincerity added to the automatic smile she's pulled from my face. My eyes don't even meet hers as my body starts to move. They're fixated on the bench and lovely pile of bones upon it, her head thrown back, no doubt to watch the heavens brew above. I can't help myself, can't grab hold of the calm exterior I'd resurrected from its storage with this exact moment in mind, so I fall victim as I always have, and rush to where I know I belong. Where I know I'm home.

**A/N: For the stories sake I've considered Sweets' book reevaluated and published. A very big thank you to everyone who's added this to their story alert/favorite stories! I'm new to this and it's amazing what those alert emails can do to improve even a Monday!**


	3. Hands Held High

Vindicated

Disclaimer: Barista and Coffee preferences aside, I own nothing

**A/N: A very big thank you to StephanieW, for her amazing beta skills, her honesty, kindness, and above all her patience**

Hands Held High

Part three of three

_Devotion in its purest form dims the light of the candle of love_

Cart closes at sun down. Thank God. Most nights, if I move fast enough and there aren't any lingering tourists or last minute provisions for a charming G mans stake out I can be gone before the symphony of night time creatures start their ritual concerto.

Tonight just wasn't one of those nights.

It had nothing to do with the clientele because honestly even the MIB seem to curb their caffeine cravings when the mall looks more like the climactic scene from The Night of the Living Dead then it does the picturesque postcard it's maintained to be. It's all swirling mist and gloomy darkness out here. It did however have everything to do with the woman sitting two benches down from me. She'd drifted past me as I was preparing to close. Her face struck a cord somewhere in the back of my memory, somewhere in the corner where I store all my customers faces. They're neatly lined up, just faces and java preferences. I'd figured she would be my last customer of the day, and I'd remember her order the moment she stepped up to the counter, but she'd only picked up her pace after nearly stopping before me, the strangest expression across her face. I watched her closely as I started the process of putting the cart to rest, a task I'd mastered so many years ago it hardly demanded even half of my attention.

So the buzzing and chirping of the insect orchestra is in full swing and the lines of lanterns are humming to life along the predominant paths as I finally drag my eyes from the mysterious brunette fidgeting in the dreary darkness and turn to take the Southeast path. It's not my usual route but it's a vain attempt to find some shelter in the trees from the evil workings overhead.

And that's when the man emerges from the misty ebony air.

He's clad only in jeans, which look as if they've been through a war and a T shirt whose logo deems him war worthy, and there's a leather jacket tucked under his arm as if bringing it along wasn't originally part of the plan.

His eyes meet mine so briefly I doubt my presents even registers, but his face is one I'd consider hard to forget, especially since seeing him triggers my memory of the restless woman on the bench.

"Hazelnut roast, cream no sugar." This captures his attention, and I think I may have startled him. He probably could have passed within inches of me and never known I was there. Or at least that's the way he makes it seem.

"Good memory." he tells me as recognition crosses his face

"Cream two sugars, second one of the day is always a decaf." I say it so matter-of-factly, because seriously I'm impressed with myself, as I throw my thumb over my shoulder to indicate the other half of his order sitting alone in the beam of artificial light.

His eyes take in her form and never meet mine again.

"I didn't recognize her without you." I tell him trying to sound less like the fog dwelling zombie I must look like and more like the dedicated barista I am. But he just gives his polite yet painted smile a second attempt at sincerity and like a moth to a flame he knows nothing but her. So I'm left standing here staring after the mist that fallows obediently in his wake, like a platoon of war bound soldiers. I do not turn to watch their meeting even though curiosity is a living, breathing, thing, inside me. I'd hate to be caught with my eye in the peep hole so to speak, seeing as we're the only three people left in the mall. And just as I rein in the curious monster inside me I hear a watery laugh, followed by a gravelly chuckle, and I can't help myself a moment longer.

He's crouched before the bench like a catcher behind home plate and quicker than any fast ball she's off the bench and in his eager arms. Her knees are in the gravel, her arms around his neck and her face is buried in his shoulder. He holds her close to his chest and tight in his arms, his own face buried in her damp, curling hair. Neither of them make an attempt at release, he just gently sways them side to side, and I hear him chuckle a second time and whisper

"I missed you too."

The night has gone so quite around us. I fee like silence has dropped its heavy cloak over only this intimate setting, shutting out the rest of the world. Even the miniature concert has stopped, the tiny musicians wanting a look at the action or they're finding higher ground in this calm before the storm. In a motion so smooth he lifts them both from their crouch on the ground, I hear his knee pop and the slight hiss between his teeth, but I doubt either of them registers his pain.

As their emotional embrace comes to a regrettable end a shadow of a serious nature takes over the scene before me. It strikes me than, like a three pound bag of coffee beans to the head, I've never witnessed a physical embrace of any kind between these two. Sure they've shared that bench every sunny day of my coffee serving existence, and I'm sure for some time before that, but I've never seen them do more than bump shoulders and share a sandwich. And it does sound silly now that I can stand to testify with such intensity but I have so many memories of them that have just come crashing forward, and not a one to match such as I've just witnessed.

She's backed up a step, her arms now folded across her chest, eyes focused on his shoes. He hasn't let her go yet, his arms slide down from her shoulders as she steps away and take purchase along the back of her elbows, preventing her from moving any farther.

"You talk to Angela yet?" I know this is not what he wants to be saying right now, because as he watches her pull her answer together I know he's already forgotten the question.

He hasn't a care for this Angela's welfare; he longs only to hear her speak.

"I don't want to talk about Angela or Jack right now." She tells him, her eyes lifting shyly up to glance at him, the glow of the lantern over head turning them to pools of golden water. Her face is expressionless, void of all emotion, but that's fine right now because his holds enough of both for all three of us.

"Ok Bones, what's it gonna be?" her words, or the ones she's left unsaid, have burned him somehow and the malice is lost on me for I cannot find the blow his face assures me she has landed. He lets go of her all together and takes his own step back, and in that one gesture all the emotion is transferred to her face.

This time the malicious blow does not venture past me but finds purchase in my heart as well.

"You said that nothing was ever going to change between us, that we'd always have each other. Even though I know change was something you really wanted. It just wasn't the change I demanded in the end." His hands go to his back pockets as hers tighten across her chest and mirror the same position his own have just abandoned.

"I'm going about this all wrong," she shakes her head and proceeds to sit back on the bench, form bowed forward, and her elbows kissing her knees.

"The first remains we unearthed upon arriving on site where those of a mother and her small child, they had seemingly died not too long after childbirth. Along side the bodies in the grave we found a few small objects we later understood to be toys." She's thrown me for a loop here, one minute we're speaking of together forever, and now we're on ancient burial grounds. His face however, shows a wealth of understanding, at least one of us sees a connection here.

"When each of the half dozen students present on that dig turned in their records, they all had one thing in common." She looks up at him then, sitting up and dropping her hands to flank her hips, and she's got a crooked grin on her already smug face.

"And what was that?"He drops back down into his assumed catcher's position. Both of his hands rest in her lap. You'd have to be blind not to see he's captivated once more by everything she offers.

"They spoke of love." The dreamy look is gone instantly from his face. As if hearing her speak of such things is a concept as ridiculous as mist lurking zombies

"The love this mother had for her child and the love of the family who thought to bury them together, who thought to leave the remains of the child with a few simple toys, a gesture of and I quote, 'loyalty and devotion'."

It's not the content of the story that has him focused so intently, it's the emotion only he can see brewing behind it. There are things she longs to tell him that only he can understand.

I can hear the tears in her voice when she speaks again.

"It made me doubt myself for the first time, made me cautious to take the path of logic. And I instantly thought of you." She looks up at him again, the golden pools spilling over to leave glistening paths down alabaster cheeks.

"You would see exactly what those students saw, a relationship between the bodies below and the remaining family who stood above and grieved. "

He wipes haphazardly and smears her skin in a vain attempt to take the evidence of sorrow from her face. He shushes her softly, like a father to a saddened child. His hands still frame her face, I feel he's almost reluctant to let go. She's like a frightened doe, frozen for the moment before the need to flee sets in.

"I don't have your open heart." The moment she speaks the tears start up again and there's a look of panic in his eyes.

"Or your capacity to love." He leans in until their foreheads meet. Her eyes are closed but the tears still fall and he's given up trying to damn them. So they travel down her pale cheeks and along the line of his cupped palms and across the frantic beating of his heart inside his inner arm. Her small hands reach up to grab hold of his forearms as he slides his left from her cheek to cradle to back of her neck.

"And whatever it is that I am capable of would never be enough in comparison to what you offer me."

I feel the tears crawl up the back of my throat with her last statement and I will admit, only to myself of course, that my knees have gone slightly weak. There's panic inside me now because this is a moment so private and here I am all but pushing them over to make room for myself on their bench. And yet I'm afraid to move, to make any noise and distract them. Something in the way the scene is set makes me believe they'd never make it back to this point again. I don't even know them and I know this needs to proceed before someone throws their cards down and the moment is lost for good.

So I watch them as the rain finally begins to fall. The cool spring drops wash away her warm tears, until the salty tracks no longer exist.

He surfaces first, absorbing the change in their surroundings and I see a storm of equal measures brewing in his eyes. Mother Nature never knew a true warrior until she was faced with this man. The leather jacket is retrieved from its romp with the ground as he slowly separates himself from her. It isn't until he has the jacket tenderly wrapped around her shoulders and her hair set free from its collar that she meets his weathered gaze. She makes an effort to speak, a need for vindication in her eyes, but he hushes her yet again with a gentle brush of fingers to her lips. He lets them linger longer than necessary and the gesture is not lost on any of us.

I choke back my tears and lock my knees as I duck inside my hoodie. The heavens could send down golf ball sized hail and it still wouldn't be enough to move me.

"I would never ask anything more of you than you've already given me." His voice is tender and slightly rough along the edges. His hands take a firmer grip on her face this time and force her eyes to his own.

"-I fell for you without any effort on your part. How I feel is all about you just being you." She keeps trying to speak and she and I both know she's wearing his already frayed patience thinner with every attempt at redemption.

"I don't need you to give me anything, or tell me anything. All I want is for you to understand what it is that I feel for you. I want you to know what is it to have someone's full affection Bones." He drops from his catchers pose to his knees and the movement brings him closer to her still. He's wedged himself between her thighs, and he takes hold of her hands and slowly extends them over his shoulders until her elbows brush his collar bone so she has no choice but to lean in. I think this new found confidence he's oozing has her thrown a bit off base.

Who's got who captivated now?

"You've never had anyone completely devote themselves to you."

He says it like he knows from experience, like he's walked along the path of her life, right beside her the whole time.

There are ghosts of conversations past hanging on his last few words but he does not take the time to elaborate on their existence. The weary looks in both their eyes lead me to believe they know better than most that ghosts have a habit of coming and going as they please. A lot like tears when they flow from the heart.

"I want to show you what you're worth Bones, what you mean to me. I think maybe once you let me, maybe then you'll understand."

If I could find my voice or feel my legs I might just have to run to her screaming. I don't know a woman, nor do I believe one exists, who wouldn't be wrapped up in all of that. I mean literally and figuratively here. I would eat him up, no utensils necessary. So when she flows from the bench into his lap I'm as relieved as he is surprised. Her nose is a fraction of an inch from his, her eyes are wide with wonder, and his are wide with what looks a little like amused terror.

"I don't want to hurt you." She means this from the bottom of the heart she claims will not open.

"I won't let you." He's fighting for truth with the lies he's dressed up for her but even I see through them. He knows as well as she does that there's nothing she could do to him that would turn him from her forever.

She settles her knees in the gravel along side his ankles and brings her elbows over his shoulders as she lowers her lips within a breath of his, he keeps his eyes locked on hers as the rain runs down both their faces. She waits until they're so close there's no choice but to share the air.

There's no matter there, neither one of them seems to remember how to inhale.

Eyes closed and hearts wide open, they both wait for her to finish what she started. She takes her time, or maybe just needs to linger in the moment. If I ever found myself kneeling in the dirt with the rain falling all around, entwined with a man even half as devoted to me, I'd definitely take the necessary time to make sure the union was engraved in the forefront of my mind forever.

And then of course I'd dig in, like I said before, no utensils necessary.

"You've always put me first Booth." The words flow from her lips over his and straight down to his heart. "No matter what I've done, or said, you've always put me first. I want to do the same for you." She doesn't see his smile but when she finally lowers her lips to his I know he tastes the tears she just can't seem to rein in.

They paint a lovely picture, in a drippy, runny watercolor kinda way. There's the usual shifting of weight and running of fingers through already unruly hair and of course there's the roaming of fluttering palms. The only difference is it's done with novice hands that belong to seasoned veterans. There's a tenderness here that usually belongs to the inexperienced and the over-eager.

But there's nothing innocent or childish about this love. Its foundation has been constructed from trust, time and devotion; it will withstand anything.

There are so many drastic changes in them that have taken place over the last few moments it's hard to keep up. She has laid all her weapons down in surrender and the lifted weight of them has softened the set of her shoulders. She no longer carries the burden of a cold and angry heart; his presence alone has warmed and nourished it beyond health and filled it with faith. The sight of her white flag flapping in the constant flow of ripe spring air strips him of the armor he's come storming in with tonight. He was expecting a battle or a mote with no draw bridge, but he was faced with neither. She met him here tonight with no protection of any kind. She left the confines of her safe and sturdy walls because she trusted him. And with that gesture alone, she's become his undoing.

He pulls his mouth back far enough only to speak and murmurs something in her ear only she can hear. It brings a smile to her face as she slides her arms around him and rests her chin in the crook of his shoulder. My attention is dragged away from the Monet-type scene before me as my knees begin to knock. I'm soaked through just as they are but I don't have the heat of undying devotion running through my veins.

I'm sure I'll be paying for this tomorrow, probably in the form of a head cold or the flu.

They don't seem to notice the chill or the breeze it's come riding through on. They're in no hurry to vacate the muddy puddle they've created. They're not only drenched in rain and tears but caked in mud from the knees down and somehow she's managed to end up with a streak of it in her hair. I have no doubt they'll retain enough of their smoldering heat for later tonight, or at this rate early tomorrow morning. I know I have to go, even without the hoodie clinging to my shoulders and my sneakers squishing as I wiggle my toes, I've been overly selfish because this show does not seek an audience.

And in the event they were aware they had one, I doubt either would be happy.

So I drag my eyes away and begin to slowly walk. I'm sure to keep out of the eerie halos of light and stick to the shadows so as not to be seen. I hear them share a laugh again and the sloshing of knees and feet being dragged through the soupy mess beneath them. As I turn to take the Southeast path, the decision that laid this love story out before me to begin with, I take one last glance. They're speaking in hushed, happy tones as he feeds her hands through the arms of his jacket, throws his arm around her shoulder and pulls her in close as they turn to take the Northeast path. It dawns on me then, I may never see them again. Surely once the MIB find out there's more to these partners their working relationship will come to a crashing halt. I smother the panic before it fully consumes me, I'm sure there's nothing in the hand book about lunch breaks with loved ones. Besides, I make too good of a cup of coffee. But more importantly, this place now holds a brand new significance that will not be ignored.

He's too soft hearted and she'll soon learn to be.

**A:N/ I know I originally said three chapters…. I'm considering maybe one more….**


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